Header

« | Home | »

poverty, black friday, and the goose getting fat.

By | November 30, 2009

…please put a penny in the old man’s hat!
if you haven’t got a penny, then a half-penny will do…

Recession has plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million.

11/3/0/9 – This is the last day, at least for now, that the federal government will subsidize COBRA premiums… COBRA premiums are unaffordable for many Americans without subsidies, as they average $1,069 per month.

brief review:
COBRA is the acronym for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, a 1986 federal law that allows for the temporary extension of group health coverage to people whose health benefits otherwise would be terminated… You’ll pay the entire premium amount, including the portion of the premium that your employer used to contribute… [plus] a 2 percent administrative fee. [The subsidy, ending today, paid 65% of this cost.]

Less than 10 percent of the newly unemployed typically sign up for COBRA… More than half of those who lose their jobs go uninsured.

In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the [richest] 1% increased their share of the country’s income to 23.5%, according to analysis of tax returns… The concentration of income earned by this top percentile now stands at its highest since 1928. Two-thirds of the country’s total gains in the five years to 2007 accrued to the top 1% .

the latest census dept poverty data was released last week.
a sampling:

worst case: in mississippi, 27.8% of all schoolkids*
(33.2% age 4 and under) live in poverty.
best case: in new hampshire, 7.8% of all schoolkids
(12.1% age 4 and under) live in poverty.

in oregon, 15.7% of all schoolkids (21.1% of 4 and under) live in poverty.

and here in lane county, oregon:
53,423 residents in poverty (15.7% of all residents).
7,230 schoolkids in poverty (14.7% of all schoolkids).
*schoolkid = age 5-17 years old

what is poverty?
The Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition… If a family’s total income is less than the family’s threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation.

a sample of the official language:
“Unrelated individuals under 15 are excluded from the poverty universe; therefore there are 442,000 fewer children in the poverty universe than in the total population.”

click here to see if you, dear reader, would be eligible for food stamps, in the oregon “poverty universe”.
here is the 16-page application form.

Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood… The current recession could push those numbers even higher… The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it’s a medical issue. [emphasis added by your personal physician]

joining the rest of the world (more emphasis-added action):
Forty-nine million people in American households – one in six – went hungry or had insufficient food at some point in 2008… [and] U.N. officials say 1 billion people – one in six globally – don’t get enough to eat.

6.6 percent of Oregon households… fall into a group technically called “very low food security,” but better known as “hunger”… Oregon is now among the five states with the highest hunger rate… Only Mississippi, at 7.4 percent, had a higher percentage than Oregon of hunger.
…It is important to note that the USDA numbers reflect the state of hunger in 2008. Since then, the economy has weakened significantly.

99 percent of all participating food banks reported a significant surge in demand for emergency food assistance over the past year… The survey showed an average increase of 30 percent in requests for emergency food assistance since July 2008.

A new study finds food waste per person has shot up 50 percent since 1974. Some 1,400 calories worth of food is discarded per person each day… About 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States is tossed out.

Black Friday this year seemed to fall into a gray area… Many shoppers seemed conflicted… Instead of the unbridled spending of past years, many people window-shopped and moved on, as if they’d come to the malls just to pretend happy days were here again.

A lot more Americans are feeling stressed out by debt this holiday season… Half of all those polled say they’re suffering at least some debt-related stress, and 22 percent say they’re feeling it greatly… Most people – 80 percent – say they’ll use mostly cash to pay for their holiday shopping… People carry an average of about $46,000 in debt – mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and other consumer debt. That’s a far bigger load than in the early 1980s… In 1982 per capita debt totaled about $14,000 in today’s dollars.

There are many orthopedic problems associated with the holiday shopping spree. Many of these are associated with prolonged hours on your feet, prolonged walking on hard surfaces and general muscle fatigue… Many of us are guilty of trying to carry too many bags and putting one more thing into an already overloaded bag. This adds stress to the entire body… [and so on.]

The new first couple told People magazine last year that they don’t personally give Christmas gifts to their daughters, but there’s always something under the tree from Santa Claus. President Barack Obama said they want to teach the kids limits.

buy-nothing holiday gift ideas, excerpted, from angela of “my year without spending”:
Mix CD… Herb garden: “A few herbs in a pretty pot”… Jam/ jelly/ marmalade… Baked goods… Knit hats or scarves… Board games: “I once made a time-travel board game for my brother that involved meeting famous people in history and curing diseases, that type of thing”… Ornaments… [and so on]

and from a writer at ruby glen:
~~Personalised Recipe Book… if one of your recipients is a vegetarian or has a penchant for curry, loves anything with tomatoes in or is a sucker for chocolate, make use of the fact by making a personalised recipe book.
~~Dress Up Box For Kids… browse round the charity shops and pick up cheap hats, scarves, veils, tutus, jewellery, gloves and small size dresses or jackets.
~~Hand Decorated Ceramics… a set of plain white ceramic egg cups, tea cups or plain glasses which are extremely inexpensive. Using a bottle of ceramic paint decorate by hand or stencil or stamp on each
~~Flavoured Cooking Oil… Half fill with peanut or olive oil. Add twigs of Rosemary, Thyme, Basil, Oregano, Parsley etc. If desired also add some peppercorns for decoration and further flavour and then fill bottle with more oil.
~~A Set Of Fridge Magnets… make small squares or circles out of cardboard and stick photos onto the card. Finish by attaching small magnets to the backs.
~~Home Made Honey Bath Oil… a cup of light baby or olive oil with 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup liquid soap, and a drop of your favourite essential oil… decant into a pretty squirt bottle.

and from the gang at buy-nothing christmas (excerpted):
~~Books on tape… it only costs time!
~~A calendar for the family with everyone’s photos and birthdays
~~Give Linux for Christmas! It’s free and it works like a charm! These days, distributions include not only the operation system that runs your computer, but applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, picture and sound editing, etc. And give a hand installing it.
~~Look through your (and your kids’) old clothes, cut out squares of fabrics they will remember, and make a little wall hanging or pillow or stuffed toy or whatever.
~~My parents always recorded a tape of me singing christmas carols and/or reading stories for my grandparents and other family that lived far away.
~~I started to make little comics for my friends, that were about us and things we had done, always with an added twist and some inside humour.
~~Make a small drawing of your select person’s living room or other room in their house and give it to them.
~~Buy a used book and in the inside cover explain why you chose the book for that person.
~~For the elderly people in your life, research newspaper and magazine articles from their youth and present in a creative fashion.
~~Create coupons for a massage, spring cleaning, child-minding, manicure, etc.
~~Babysitting coupons for the new parents.

but in the meantime…
The economy has taken a toll on a New York tradition: the “Sidewalk Santas” who collected money for the poor on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The 107-year-old program has gone online for the second year in a row… It doesn’t have the money to manage and pay formerly homeless men to play Santa and gather donations. Spokeswoman Rachel Weinstein said Saturday that many are elderly and in fragile health.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Comments